FOOD

FOOD; Dark Victory

By Jonathan Reynolds

Published: October 5, 2003

'Acting is my profession -- I've been doing it since I was 5,'' Madhur Jaffrey says as she pours a gallon of milk into a saucepan on my 12-burner Garland. ''Cooking is what I would do anyway.'' She sets the milk to low and simmers it v-e-r-y slowly for cardamom-and-pistachio ice cream -- two hours later, it will have reduced by two-thirds and have a curious, almost thready texture. On the other side of the open counter to the dining room, her husband of 36 years, the violinist Sanford Allen, silently and precisely cuts green beans into pea-size cubes. ''I just finished doing two months on 'East Enders,''' Madhur says of her experience on the long-running BBC nighttime soap as she starts the mango soup. ''On the show, I'm the mother of a family who's separated from her husband and living with another man. The husband has told the children I'm dead. But they know I'm alive and visit me. It's quite the drama.'' She laughs girlishly. It's 2:15 p.m., Aug. 14, 2003. Drama? Just wait.

The women at my local Mailboxes, Etc., know exactly who Madhur Jaffrey is. People who I thought knew nothing about cooking enjoy a hands-on relationship with her food. If Julia Child almost single-handedly brought serious French food into American homes, and Marcella Hazan brought other-than-meatballs Italian, and Jane Grigson miraculously salvaged some British food from unpalatability, then there is no question that Madhur Jaffrey not only changed the way this country views Indian food but also affected the way restaurants do, too -- more than anyone. One of her early books, ''Indian Cooking,'' has sold more than a million copies worldwide, and an updated reissue has just appeared. Altogether, she has written 20 -- and found time to appear in more than 20 movies.

Madhur and my recipe-tester, Alice Thompson, are preparing an Indian meal for 11 guests culled from that million-seller and her latest, ''From Curries to Kebabs,'' which explores the history of curries and, of course, how they are spiced. ''There are about 30 main Indian spices,'' Madhur says. ''The chief difference between Indian and other types of cooking lies not just in the ones we use, but the technique of using them -- whether to grind the cumin seed with water or vinegar or to fry it whole in oil, when to use it dry, whether to mix it with fenugreek or nigella or black cardamom or all of them. Their combination can be magical and has been developed over centuries.''

It's 87 degrees or so, humidity in the 80's and I've got two A.C.'s pumping away, neutralizing the effect of the Garland, if not exactly chilling the room. Thank God for air-conditioning, even if it did make Houston possible.

''I didn't know anything about cooking till I was 20,'' Madhur says as she arranges mustard seeds, chopped garlic and fresh curry leaves on a plate. ''I went to RADA'' -- the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art -- ''in London in the late 50's, and the food was terrible. There I was eating this rotten stuff and dreaming of the food at home, and I didn't know how to make it. I wrote Mother, 'Can you please tell me how to make three dishes?' and she did -- goat with whole spices, cauliflower and potato and one I still use all the time, a potato dish with tomatoes, cumin and asafetida -- and I began experimenting. I was able to because my palate remembered the taste.''

Alice opens a can of Alphonso mango, and Madhur mixes it into a few spices, a little chickpea flour and some yogurt. ''In India, mangoes are like cheese in France -- over a hundred varieties,'' she says in her lilting, melodious voice. But Madhur claims that canned Alphonso is better than the fresh versions of the few varieties we get here.

''Sanford,'' she says, ''would you do the shrimp?'' Sanford pours salt on a couple of pounds of medium shrimp, rubs them slightly, then washes them under cold water. ''This gives them extra flavor,'' he says. Madhur adds: ''Most shrimp are flavorless and turn rubbery. The best are from Jefferson Market, but only the medium size.''

After his shrimp chores, Sanford heads home, a few blocks away, as Madhur rinses the rice. ''Basmati is best when it's aged and sort of an ivory color.'' Alice whirs ginger and water in the blender for the lemony chicken with coriander. ''When I made this on my TV cooking show in London, the entire city of Manchester ran out of coriander!'' Madhur says and laughs. It is 4:11. The lights flicker, the A.C.'s hiccup and . . . BLACKOUT.

For a moment, the world stops. Then we resume prepping the chicken, assuming that the lights will come on in a few minutes. Two hours later, Alice and I alternate shining flashlights on Madhur's work, which continues apace. There is a brief discussion about canceling dinner, but everyone agrees to press on. Fortunately, I am sufficiently paranoid to stock wind-up radios, flashlights, a billion batteries, a hard-wired telephone and even some drinking water. (Just don't plan on coming to my place during the next disaster: I also agree with the Swiss that every home should have at least one firearm.)